BARON COHEN TOO FAMOUS FOR CHARACTERS' GOOD "Sacha Baron Cohen went undercover as his alter ego Bruno on Sunday by crashing a rally in support of a ballot measure that would ban gay marriage in California. … Cohen, in disguise in a blond wig and preppy outfit, marched with demonstrators who support Proposition 8 while being trailed by cameras in a rally across from City Hall. When photographers and reporters realized who he was and tried to approach the star, members of his film crew tried to shield him, and he was eventually whisked away in a van."
• Jessica Simpson attempts her best "sexy" face. [HT]
• "Ali Lohan is ready to follow in big sis Lindsay's musical footsteps" is not a compliment, Ali. Sorry. [INO]
• What the hell happened to Jake Gyllenhaal? [ICYDK]
• Lindsay Lohan and Samantha Ronson got matching tattoos, because that's what BFFs do. [Yeeeah]
• Sacha Baron Cohen's daughter: A mini-Borat. [PS]
• The next classic Hollywood has decided to destroy: The Witches of Eastwick. We give up. [DListed]
DUELING SHERLOCKS "Columbia Pictures is betting that audiences will quickly embrace as inherently hilarious the idea of Sasha Baron Cohen and Will Ferrell as Sherlock Holmes and his crime-solving partner Dr. Watson, Variety reports. … Based on the famed novels by Arthur Conan Doyle, the comedy is the second Holmes project currently in the works at a major studio, although Warner Bros.' 'Sherlock Holmes' is a drama written by Anthony Peckham to be directed by Guy Ritchie."
Yay! Just in time for perhaps the most important election in modern American history comes another film in which rich liberals literally laugh at poor conservatives. Yes we can!
Hot on the heels of the mockumentary hit Borat, which found Sacha Baron Cohen hilariously breaking the personal possessions of people with whom he didn't agree, judgmental comic Bill Maher is releasing Religulous, an attack film on your God. And attack he does: In the trailer alone, Maher says religion is worrisome, ridiculous (there's the title!) and crazy; he also compares God to Santa Claus and calls praying "murmuring." Who you calling elitist? Oh, right…
The thing is, we agree with Maher about a lot of this stuff, but does he really think the cultural landscape needs another 90 minute bundle of condescension? In our experience, try as one might, hurting people's feelings rarely changes their beliefs; so what do movies like Borat and Religulous provide but sideshow-style entertainment for Democrats on the coasts to enjoy in darkened rooms?
Sacha Baron Cohen is retiring his bumbling Borat character, thereby reinstating Saudi Arabia as the entity laughing the loudest at America while profiting the most off America.
• Sacha Baron Cohen stuffed his crotch for Sweeney Todd. No idea why. [Queerty]
• "In my lifetime, from World War II on, life got freer and freer until herpes, then AIDS. That was the end, ask any bar owner. Things moved to the right." [DListed]
• The Gossip Girl boy is gossiping with girls at a basketball game. Oh boy! [PS]
• Most of the hookers we've seen in New York have "hooker flip flops with holes in the soles" and "hooker crippling drug addictions," not leather "hooker boots." [HT]
• No makeup. That's what we like to see. [INO]
• Madonna's new album will not be titled Licorice. What a relief, huh? [ICYDK]
• For her babies, Jennifer Lopez wants a bunch of impractical stuff that's absurdly expensive. How incongruous with the miracle of life. [Yeeeah]
• People write all over this city, and, when it's not racist, it can be really great. [CityRag]
One can't force the biggest movie star in the world to change his shoes, but: Where did he find that much mud in New York City? Is that imported French mud? If so, may we check it for truffles?
Get ready, Americans: Yet another movie is in the works that will make us laughingstocks to the world. Oh, joy!
[Source]
Finally, a movie musical with enough gruesome murders to hold the attention of even my most priapic, weightlifting older brother.
Last evening, everyone from Samuel L Jackson to Dane Cook (yeesh) turned out for the annual MTV Movie Awards, that glorious time of year when the network transforms itself from being simply a constant commercial for bad pop culture into a vastly more obvious constant commercial for bad pop culture.
Highlights of the evening included very high-minded comedy like a fat guy chasing Sarah Silverman (brilliant!) to Will Ferrell and Sacha Baron Cohen kissing (I mean, men kissing—can you believe it?).
The most inexplicable photo grouping of the night must be Chris Tucker, Victoria Beckham and Bruce Willis, whose mere proximity to one another must have led to a completely unnecessary picture. I guess it's up to you to name the star, the has-been and the never-was.
PS Megan Fox, the awe-inducing beauty from Transformers, will be the new "it" girl. I'm calling "it."
There's a lot more pictures after this jump.
CONTINUED »
• See, your honor? She's a saint. [DListed]
• I'm guessing Snoop Dogg was not captain of the debate team. [SH]
• Borat was supposed to look like Freddy Mercury? [Glitterati]
• No more kids means more bar time. Score! [ASL]
• The answer is five. Five movies until they start highlighting the girl's boobs. [BWE]
• Oprah's for Obama. I say put Oprah on the ticket and run a "Double O for '08" campaign. That can't lose. [Jossip]
Looking through the photos of the 32nd Annual Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards that went down in L.A. yesterday, it's hard to notice anything but one specific thing: everyone there was really, really old. Sure, they're not going for the MTV audience, but when Clint Eastwood is the youngest buck at the assigned seating tables, we've got a problem. Thankfully, there was Reese Witherspoon to save the day. (Okay, Borat was there too.)
Reese Witherspoon, with her shiny-happy-people face that really shouldn't exist in a world sans Ryan Phillippe. That Oscar she won? Clearly well deserved, if only for this performance alone.
Editor
